“explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,”’ he said.”
~ Acts 17:3
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you like to go to different places? Do you remember the places where you have gone? Do you remember what you saw in the places where your dad and/or ma have taken you? As your grandpaa was reading about what Luke wrote in Acts 17 to his friend Theophilus regarding Paul’s second missionary journey, your grandpaa began to reminisce about different experiences that he and your grandmaa had during trips that they made in eastern Bolivia when your grandmaa and grandpaa lived in Bolivia as missionaries on the South America Mission field missionary team. The first memory that popped into your grandpaa’s mind took place during a trip that your grandmaa and grandpaa were making to Concepción, Nuflo de Chávez – which is where your grandmaa and grandpaa initiated a rural, resident Bible education and leadership training program. The drive to Concepción from Santa Cruz involved having to cross the Rio Grande (Big River) – which during the rainy season becomes a wide, fast-moving river, in a small flatbottom barge like boat. One time as your grandmaa and grandpaa were crossing in a flatbottom barge like boat the Rio Grande in their C-10 Chevrolet pickup, someone took a photo – which your grandmaa and grandpaa have, of your grandmaa and grandpaa leaning against the hood of their pickup while they were in the middle of the Rio Grande in the flatbottom barge like boat. Shortly before getting to the Rio Grande from Santa Cruz, there is a stretch of dirt road between the town of Okinawa and the Rio Grande where during the rainy season, stretches of this road will become so mucky muddy that a tractor is needed to pull vehicles through these stretches. On one of the trips when your grandpaa needed a tractor to pull your grandpaa’s white C-10 Chevrolet pickup through the mud to dry ground at the edge of the Rio Grande, a single tractor could only pull the pickup a couple of hundred meters or so before it could no longer go any further. While your grandmaa and grandpaa waited for the tractor to return with another tractor, your grandmaa and grandpaa could only sit on the hood of their C-10 Chevrolet pickup watching tractors pull vehicles from the other direction past where they were stuck. While they were sitting on the hood of their C-10 Chevrolet pickup, your grandmaa and grandpaa had a helpless feeling as there was absolutely nothing that they could do without the help of tractors to get them out of the muck that had them trapped. Your grandmaa and grandpaa had the same kind of helpless feeling sometimes while crossing the Rio Grande when all they could do was to lean against the hood of their white C-10 Chevrolet pickup while three or four guys would first have to pull the flatbottom barge like boat that your grandmaa and grandpaa were in upriver against the Rio Grande’s churning fast moving current before starting across to the other side – pulling and pushing hard to cross the river’s current that was trying to pull everyone and everything down the river.
Your grandpaa could go on and on about different challenging adventures that he and your grandmaa found themselves in during trips that they were making in which they had to put their trust in someone else to get them to someplace else. During the missionary trips that Paul went on, Paul would sometimes end up in a really sticky, testy situation in a town that he was visiting when he needed help from others. Paul’s second missionary journey had him traveling with Silas and Timothy through what is now the country of Greece. While Paul was traveling by foot in what is now the country of Greece, Paul went from the city of Amphipolis to the city Apollonia and then on to the city of Thessalonica. While Paul was in the city of Thessalonica, Paul taught in the synagogue that was there. The key point of Paul’s teachings is in verse 3, “explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,”’ he said.” When what Paul taught about Christ angered some of the guys who were Jews who were living in the city of Thessalonica, the Jews rounded up a mob of ruffians to initiate a riot resulting in Christ-follower guys and gals who were living in the city of Thessalonica asking Paul to leave. After the same Jews found out that Paul had gone on to the town of Berea, they went to the town of Berea to agitate the guys and gals there against Paul. Some of the Christ-follower guys and gals in the town of Berea escorted Paul to the city of Athens – where Paul was able to give details to some Epicurean philosophers at the Areopagus on the hill of Ares about what he was teaching. Paul used this opportunity to confront the religious superstitions that the guys and the gals had who lived in the city of Athens. Paul specifically referred to an altar where the Athenian guys would take sacrifices to that had carved in it an inscription that read ‘to an unknown god’ as an example of wanting to appease a god that they did not know but that might bring harm to them if they did not sacrifice something to it. After focusing on their need to repent and to accept as an absolute truth that an incarnate man had been raised from the dead, Paul got sneers from some of the Athenian guys and gals while Dionysius – an Areopagus card holder, a gal by the name of Damaris and several others believed what Paul was teaching and they became Christ-followers.
Because of the problematic times in which your grandmaa and grandpaa found themselves in while in Bolivia as South America Mission field team missionaries, your grandmaa and grandpaa had to learn to trust other guys at times to help them. Paul also had to learn to trust other guys to help him. Your grandpaa thinks that trusting in guys to help is good but trusting in God for His help is a given to always do. How are you doing with your trust tests?
Acts 17 (930)